


a sea story

by Trell (orphan_account)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Lowercase, Reincarnation, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Trell





	a sea story

1.  
this is the one where one pirate rescues another, his ostensible enemy; where he doesn’t know why he does it, only that he doesn’t regret it (no matter how great the crime of leaving the other to face being newly alone). two years later he finds himself being rescued in turn, from his enemies and his past and himself. maybe it’s the legacy of a letter that does it, or maybe just a boy with a sunbeam smile and a heart so large that it makes our pirate feel terribly small; but makes him want to live again, just a little, just enough. it’s not a love story. it’s a different kind of story. that there’s love in it is only the inevitable product of kindness; the end result of its cascade.

2.  
she gives him her heart, bloody red and beating in his pocket. he gives it back double, two for one, _have mine as well as yours_. with him she learns not to fear the guillotine: there’s safety in numbers, even with just two. it’s a love story, only he’s not in love with her (with anyone) and his soul belongs to another. he chases the pirate king for the rest of his life, breathless; she keeps pace, and keeps breathing.

3.  
there’s a girl that sees lines in her head and doesn’t believe in dragons in the blank spaces on maps. (or maybe she does, only; she wants to meet them, because maps shouldn’t lie, and if _there be dragons_ then it’s there they should be.) there’s another girl, and this one’s a princess; and maybe you know this story, the one with the dashing pirate and the noble damsel, only this time the pirate’s a girl that can tell the worth of a coin by the sound it makes when it falls and the damsel knows what it is to die for her people before she knows how to walk. it’s a love story, and a sea story, the old kind; where even the love found ashore can’t silence the call of the blue.

4.  
it’s the only true story the liar likes to tell, this love story. it’s a story about him (like all of his stories), a story about a liar and a cook; about laughter and cigarette smoke and a friendship gone deeper, broader, filling the empty spaces inside of them both. it’s the kind of story people like to hear after a good meal, balm for the heart to go with food for the stomach; the kind where everyone knows the ending already, _happily ever after_ , nothing to fear. the liar tells it often, always the same, enough that the cook knows every word. he leans out of the kitchen to listen, anyway.

5.  
it’s an old story, one that has happened before and will happen again. it’s a story about two souls finding each other, no matter the trappings and no matter the names; this time, it goes like this. when they meet she seizes his ship and demands his surrender, and his heart is among the concessions. this time, he is the king and she is his queen, a red flower in her hair and a fleet at her back; this time, she is his lover. (next time, it will be different. next time, they will not know that this is their story.) he dies on the execution stand (that part stays the same, every time, immutable) and she follows soon after; this time, she leaves a son. it’s an old story, one that changes with the telling: but it’s a love story, the story of the pirate king and the pirate king’s lover (in the simple sense; love, even in the absence of lovers) ever bound to the sea.


End file.
